Climate

A better understanding of climate change is necessary for governments and decision makers to take action to mitigate climate change and to adapt to minimise its impact on society.

This requires the development of science-based climate services to give decision makers better access to climate information.

EUMETSAT’s role

EUMETSAT is a world leader in providing the robust scientific data from space needed to understand climate variability and change. Our long-term, multi-satellite programmes provide an increasing portfolio of observations that are key contributions to climate monitoring.

The Meteosat weather satellites have been providing data for climate monitoring over Europe and Africa since 1978, building up in the process one of the longest time-series of climate data collected by satellite in the world.

Closer to Earth, the Metop satellites, in operation since 2006, carry eight main instruments that provide more detailed, global data to monitor the atmosphere , oceans and land surfaces as well as the cryosphere.

In addition, ocean monitoring satellites such as the Jason series and Copernicus Sentinel-6 monitor global mean sea level rise due to climate change, while the Sentinel-3 satellites collect other essential ocean observations.

EUMETSAT processes these satellite observations to develop climate data records, which are time series of satellite measurements of sufficient length and consistency to determine climate variability and change.

Our climate monitoring activities involve our central facilities in Darmstadt and the network of Satellite Application Facilities (SAFs) – with a leading role for the SAF on Climate Monitoring.

EUMETSAT delivers climate data and information available to its Member States, the Copernicus Climate Change Service , and users worldwide, including the global scientific community.